Month: June 2016

Introducing Undergrads to Nursing History

One of the advantages to the UConn School of Nursing of having the Josephine A. Dolan Collection of Nursing History is its ready availability for faculty and students on campus.

12662493_1040143966046771_7585352240193530873_n

Jo Dolan’s and founding dean Carolyn Ladd Widmer’s long-standing commitment to grounding students’ clinical expertise in the knowledge of nursing’s history has been embedded in the curriculum from its inception, with a survey of nursing history.  Once taught as a first-year nursing history and theory course, today it is placed as one of the capstone courses in seniors’ final semester.

12705567_1040144186046749_1035880088030573209_n

But how to make the Dolan Collection accessible in a guided, directed way, especially to undergraduates?

12734224_1040144006046767_6324668351087103625_n

Associate Professor in Residence Thomas Lawrence Long, curator of the Dolan Collection and instructor of the nursing history course (Nursing’s Past as Prologue) met that challenge during the spring 2016 term by assigning each student an artifact, document, photograph or other ephemera from the collection, both items stored in Storrs Hall and those in the University’s Archives and Special Collections.

12718359_1040144166046751_890011463774208835_n

Early in the semester, students spent one class session examining the object assigned to them using a rubric developed by the American Studies Association Material Culture Caucus, Twenty Questions to Ask an Object.

12729267_1040144099380091_476447881262949537_n

In addition to seeking answers to questions about nursing’s material culture, students were also prepared to search relevant published literature related to those objects, conducted by Valori Banfi, nursing librarian.

12734181_1040144016046766_8254382813229073041_n

All of this data collection was preliminary to each student writing a blog post on the object assigned to them, which they submitted for a grade.

12729199_1040144059380095_4091777829124145114_n

In the months to come, you will be able to read the product of their work, with two blog posts per week published here.